The President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity received a group of entrepreneurs. The First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zelig, Minister for Economic Development Alexander Zhmailo, Finance Minister Irina Sytnic, Prosecutor General Tamuraz Khugaev, Chairman of the committee for state control and economic security Batradz Tokazov, and the Chairman of the Committee for Taxation Konstantin Koliev attended the meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, Eduard Kokoity draw the attention to the efforts of the authorities did its best to provide necessary assistance to entrepreneurs who lost their property during the August war. “For us one of the priorities is support to small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. Next year we are planning to allocate funds from the budget of the Republic to support business in South Ossetia. Without strengthening this sector there will be no stable economy”, said the president.
The president tasked ministries and head of governmental agencies to create favorable conditions for entrepreneurship. He also pointed to unreliability of some businessmen.
The RSO Prosecutor General informed the gathering on the findings of an independent commission assessing the scope and the character of the damage caused to entrepreneurs by the Georgian aggression. “The working commission presented an information note
where it suggested the primary steps to be taken to overcome the consequences of the war. It was proposed to pay compensations to affected small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, as well as to pay out the bank loan debts”, said Khugaev. Loan debts were covered from the state budget for 16 entrepreneurs. However, these sums exceed the real estimate of the damage caused by the war. In the meantime, majority of entrepreneurs have no debts but the damage they suffered from amounts millions of roubles and they were left without any assistance.” In his report the Prosecutor General pointed to a number of violations of law during the work of the above commission. These facts were revealed when the work of the commission was revised and checked. “According to the results of the commission’s work evaluation, there were warnings on violations of law. Nonetheless, the working commission did not take into consideration these notes and did nothing to eliminate the shortcomings. Currently, the case is under scrutiny and there are investigation measures undertaken”, said Khugaev. Eduard Kokoity tasked law enforcement bodies to finalize the case and withdraw the funds which were unjustly distributed among the entrepreneurs.
“I insist that relevant ministries and agencies should start providing loans to the affected entrepreneurs before 20 November. In the nearest future, the Government will allocate 10 mil RUR for this program”, stated the president. .
The gathering has also heard on the problems that representatives of small and medium-sized entrepreneurship had to encounter. Eduard Kokoity informed that very soon certain decisions and solutions will be identified to cope with the situation.
